EuroSheep: increasing flock profitability through improved sheep health and nutrition management.

The objective of the thematic network EuroSheep is to increase profitability of sheep production through improved health and nutrition management. EuroSheep involves 8 countries and used multi actor and transdisciplinary approaches, to exchange experience and knowledge among sheep farmers, veterinarians, technicians, advisors and researchers. The project is built on 6 steps starting with the identification of the end users needs and finishing with the definition of a dissemination strategy and a research exploitation.
To identify the needs, a survey was developed and launched asking stakeholders what were their main needs regarding the nutrition and health of 3 categories of sheep (adults, lambs and replacements). Nearly 1300 surveys have been completed across Europe and Turkey. To address the identified needs, 96 solutions (47 on nutrition and 49 on health) were collected as proposed by stakeholders in the different countries. During national workshops, the stakeholders within each country selected the 10 solutions they preferred. In the nutrition category, the 2 solutions preferred were “nutrition plan of ewe lambs from weaning to mating” and “guidelines for interpretation of milk urea concentration in sheep milk”. In the health category, the 3 solutions which were preferred were “design and strategy of the hoof bath”, “booklet on how to recognize lameness” and “mixed grazing of cattle and sheep to limit parasite infestation”. Following this choice, 44 solutions have been further assessed by the end users in different countries. Persistent gaps to the main needs (needs without a proposed solution) have been identified for further research exploitation.